Within a business, organizing is essential to keep day-to-day activities afloat and regular business function in motion.
Therefore, it is essential for leadership to understand the power behind responsibility, power and empowerment. This paper will define and provide examples of responsibility, power and empowerment. These concepts, in relation to a supervisor’s role, create a variety of opportunities for planning and delegation. Defining Responsibility, Power and Empowerment The word responsibility creates numerous different reactions from positive to negative.
Byars and Rue (2010) defines responsibility as “accountability for reaching objectives, using resources properly and adhering to organizational policy. ” An example of a supervisor showing responsibility would be taking on a task to be accomplished by a certain period of time. The supervisor will then delegate responsibilities, oversee progress and ensure completion of said task. Power is a misconceived concept that is used for both good and bad. According to Dictionary. com LLC (2011), power is “the possession of control or command over others; authority; ascendancy” (Power, para.
).Leaders within an organization are given power in order to complete necessary tasks. Leaders must learn to use this power to motivate others in order to allocate work in order to achieve the overall goal of the organization. An example of power for a leader within an organization would be making a choice to change a policy in order to create desired changes. Delegation is a necessary tool for leaders within an organization because delegations allow leaders to organize in order to achieve company goals.
According to WordNet Search (2011), "empowerment [is] the act of conferring legality or sanction or formal warrant” (Noun, para. 1). An example of delegation would be a supervisor being assigned to accomplish a goal. The supervisor will then decide on duties needing to be completed in order to achieve the goal. Next, the supervisor will assign these duties to individuals with set deadlines. Supervisor Role Through the concepts mentioned above: responsibility, power and empowerment, supervisors have tools to complete his or her job role.
Simply stated, the supervisor’s role within an organization is to be responsible for company goals, use power to plan and execute job duties, and delegate work to employees. Planning is not always the supervisor’s role within an organization. “The scalar principle states that authority flows one link at a time from the top of the organization to the bottom” (Byars and Rue, 2010, p. 164).
The importance of this concept illustrates goals aren’t necessarily set by supervisors.Therefore, a supervisor has an added task of buying into goals in order to effectively plan and accomplish objectives, and generate buy in for employees. After receiving and creating goals, a supervisor will split up the workload amongst employees in order ensure objectives are achieved as expected. “Successful delegation involves three steps: assigning work to the different employees in the work group, creating an obligation on the part of each employee to perform, and grating permission to take the actions necessary to perform the duties” (Byars and Rue, 2010, p.
66). The supervisor’s role doesn’t stop at this point; however, continues by ensuring benchmarks are reached to make certain the overall goal is met by deadlines.Conclusion Within a business, organizing is essential to keep day-to-day activities afloat and regular business function in motion. Therefore, it is essential for leadership to understand the power behind responsibility, power and empowerment. Through concepts such as responsibility, power and empowerment, supervisor’s plan and delegate in order to achieve goals.
